the island of Patmos. At the instigation of his friends, who urged him
to attack the celibacy of the monks and nuns, he turned his attention
to this question, and issued a work /On Monastic Vows/, in which he
declared that such vows of chastity, being opposed to the freedom of
the Gospel, were sinful and should be neglected. In his book /On the
Mass/ he assailed the Mass and the whole theory of the Christian
priesthood, declaring that every believer was in a true sense a
priest. He poured out a most violent torrent of abuse against Henry
VIII. of England, who, in his /Defence of the Seven Sacraments/, had
ventured to join issue with the German reformer. At the same time he
undertook to prepare a translation of the New Testament as a means of
advancing his propaganda. By aid of mis-translations and marginal
notes he sought to popularise his views on Faith and Justification,
and to win favour with the people by opening to them the word of God,
which he asserted falsely had been closed against them for centuries.

All his pamphlets were couched in popular language and were exactly
the kind of works likely to appeal to the masses of the people, as
well as to the debased instincts of those who had entered into the
religious state in response to the wishes of their parents or
guardians rather than in obedience to the call of God. But while
Luther thus catered for the multitude, Melanchthon sought to gain the
support of the more educated classes by throwing Luther's teaching
into scientific and systematic form in his work, /Loci Communes/
(1521), a book that remained for centuries the standard authority on
Lutheran teaching.

It would be wrong to assume that Luther developed his theological
system in its entirety before his separation from the Church. On the
question of Justification and Free-will he had arrived at views